Add the authorâs homemade rattles to your flies
and catch more fish.

Paraphrasing a line from the movie
Apocalypse Now: âI just love to feel the
strike of a big fish in the morning. It
feels likeâvictory.â

I thought of that line while casting a
chartreuse Barber Bullet rattle fly to a
two-foot-long northern pike in Canada.
As I stripped the fly to give it a quick
jerking action, I caught movement in
the water to my right. I could barely
control myself as a much larger pike
plowed the surface and charged my fly. I
set the hook and was immediately
sprayed as the pike turned and water
exploded at my feet. It felt likeâvictory.

I have been lucky enough to catch
billfish in Cabo San Lucas, salmon in
Alaska, big channel cats in South Texas,
and trout in Colorado. But nothing flips
my switch like fly fishing for northern
pike. My buddies say Iâm a hacker
because I will use any legal method to
catch fish. Trolling for billfish with conventional
gear is exciting, and I defy
anyone say they do not get caught up
watching the grandkids catch panfish
with a worm and bobber. But for me, fly
fishing for pike is personal: you tie the
fly, spot a big fish, and make a perfect
cast. The toothy fish looks and reacts,
and itâs showtime!

Homemade Rattles

Many years ago, a friend and I were fishing for northern pike at Elevenmile
Reservoir in Central Colorado. I
caught only one pike from some
muddy water, and it occurred to me
that I needed something to help the
fish locate the fly. Lures with rattles
were becoming popular, and I wondered
if I could add a rattle to a pike fly.
I researched rattles but found nothing I
liked. The glass and small brass rattles
seemed too small; I wanted something
big and noisy. After many hours of
experimenting, I discovered that a steel
BBâthe kind used in a kidâs BB gunâ
fits nicely inside an empty .22 long
rifle shell casing. I sealed the open end
of the casing with hot glue, and was
pleased to discover that this homemade
rattle made a loud âthud.â

I added the rattle to a pike fly, and
simply hot-glued some eyeballs in
place and made a large head using
quick-setting epoxy. I had a lot of success
with this crude-looking fly, but
when I discovered E-Z Body tubing, I
created a pattern that was much
more presentable and fishy looking. I
have not been able to find a factorymanufactured
rattle that duplicates the
sound of my homemade rattle.

I have been making the Barber Bullet
pike fly for more than eight years. My
friends and I have used it to catch northern
pike, largemouth bass, smallmouth
bass, and channel catfish. I even caught
a four-pound rainbow trout with a black
version while fishing for pike in
Stagecoach Lake near Steamboat
Springs, Colorado. Last February, the
black version worked very well on
channel catfish in South Texas; the
biggest fish weighing 13 pounds.

Acquiring the materials to make
these homemade rattles is simple and
inexpensive. I pick up spent .22 long
rifle shell casings off the ground at my
local gun club, and purchase steel BBs
at a neighborhood discount store.
Youâll also need something to seal the
open end of the casing; if you simply
pinch in the mouth of the casing, the
BB will wedge in the end and the rattle
will be ineffective. I use a small disk
made from a business card to seal the
end of the casing. Simply set the card
on a scrap piece of wood, and place the
open end of the casing on the card.
Next, lightly whack the casing with a
hammer to punch out a small disk. To
assemble the rattle, place the BB in the
casing and seal the end with the paper
disk and a drop of epoxy. If this seems
like too much work, you can simply
seal the end of the casing with hot glue,
but sometimes the glue oozes into the
rattle and sticks to the BB. If the BB
gets stuck in the glue, just pry out the
glue, remove the BB, and start over.

Try adding homemade rattles to a
variety of your big-fish flies. These rattles
are easy to make, and theyâll make
your flies more effective.

To see the recipe and full tying instructions for this fly pick up the Autumn 2007 copy of Fly Tyer.

This is Dan Barberâs first contribution to
our magazine. Dan lives in Colorado.